


All For One

by starsoverhead



Category: Knight Rider (1982), Knight Rider (2008)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-10 20:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsoverhead/pseuds/starsoverhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Knight Rider became Knight Rider 2008.  A meeting over the grave of Devon Miles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All For One

**Date:** May 30, 1997  
  
People drifted away in near silence. Some murmured amongst themselves, dabbing wet eyes with handkerchiefs. Others caught their breath between stifled sobs as they walked, step by step, to the waiting cars. Many looked back to the small gathering still standing near the grave that still stood open, handfuls of soil scattered over the casket below, roses cast to meet their own death under the weight of six feet of earth.  
  
It only took minutes - ten, maybe fifteen - for the cemetery to become silent. It seemed like too soon, she realised as she stood there, surprisingly cold even in the warm sun. Her blood hadn’t lost the chill she’d felt since it all began. He’d become ill so quickly. Even now, she could almost hear that voice that had become more paternal to her than her own father.  
  
“Now, Bonnie,” that voice told her. “You know that few things last forever, even if they’re built to perfection by your very capable hands.”  
  
She knew. She knew very well. But to be face to face with the reality still brought such a heavy, throat-tightening pain. She wanted to blame somebody. To scream, to have somebody to be _angry_ at. To focus all of her grief into a tight band of emotion, one she was more used to dealing with. Frustration and anger she could deal with, did deal with. On a weekly basis. It was part of her job, part of who she was. And even in the past, when she’d thought she’d lost someone, she’d still found a way to bring him back.  
  
With her very capable hands.  
  
Years ago, even a decade ago, she and Kitt had had a discussion. Should’ve been a surgeon, he’d told her, and she’d told him no, she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Maybe, though. Maybe if she had been a doctor, she could’ve changed this. Could’ve come up with something, some way, that today, this damned sunny day in May, the three — no, the _five_ of them could’ve been out having a picnic, or been sitting in his office, deciding on the next case, joking and laughing and feeling like the family they’d become. If she’d been a doctor, though, she probably never would’ve found that little family at all.  
  
Bargaining was a stage of grief, and she thought just then that she’d entered it. Even if there was still anger. That was the trouble with emotions. They were never as simple or clear-cut as anyone wanted them to be. They were never rational. And at the moment, her emotions were making her throat hurt, her eyes hurt, her head hurt, and her heels were making her feet hurt, but she couldn’t move away from the graveside.  
  
She took consolation in the fact that she wasn’t the only one. Most of them were there, still there, still staring at the casket as if something was going to happen, even though they all knew better. Michael at her left, Reg at her right. Kitt was parked maybe twenty yards away. The employees nobody knew FLAG had.  
  
Across the grave from them stood two more. Jennifer Knight, the woman Bonnie still held a grudge against, and Charles Graiman. She knew Charles. Some would consider them comrades, others rivals. She didn’t consider them either. Just two scientists, engineers, programmers, that happened to be working for the same man at the same time. But just like the grave separated them, so did the line between FLAG and Knight Industries. And in that casket was the only man who had truly, with his heart and soul, with this dedication, kept the two as one.  
  
Reg - his ‘mature’ nickname, they’d kidded him - reached over and squeezed her hand. Bonnie was surprised at first at how warm it was before she returned the gesture, giving him a nod. With his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders bent forward, he started the walk toward Kitt. Next, it was Michael who touched her. Laid his hand on her shoulder, then gathered her into a hug that she returned before he followed the younger man.  
  
She wasn’t looking forward to this. She’d known it was coming; she’d expected it in a sort of lurking, nebulous way the moment that Devon’s death had been pronounced.  
  
Bonnie lifted her head as she heard the footsteps coming toward her. Two sets. Both of them, then. They came around the grave, but she didn’t turn to face them. This should wait, her nerves told her. This kind of talk. This isn’t the place for it, or the time.  
  
“There are better places for this,” Jennifer began, unknowingly echoing Bonnie’s thoughts.   
  
It almost brought her to laugh, but she knew the sound would be bitter. She kept it to a grim smile instead. “You’re right,” she said. “But I guess you know I wouldn’t set foot in your office, even if you offered me every single bonus you could think of.”  
  
“You’ve judged me harshly for the past ten years.”  
  
“Eleven years. About to be twelve years. And you’re right again. But you gave me good reason to hold a grudge.”  
  
“And something tells me,” Jennifer exhaled, “that I’m not about to help my case.”  
  
“Probably not.”  
  
“But it needs to be said.” From the corner of her eye, Bonnie saw Jennifer set her shoulders. This, she thought, was a speech that she’d prepared. That she’d thought up, practiced, had picked and chosen words and phrases that she thought would be gentle. “The times have changed. I saw, even eleven years ago, the good that FLAG could do. And I’ve seen since then the good that FLAG continued to do.”  
  
 _Continued_. The one word was all she’d needed to hear.  
  
“Devon was the reason for that,” Jennifer went on as Bonnie kept her eyes on the exposed dirt of the grave wall. “He knew people. Military, governmental, CEOs and chairmen of businesses that could give all of you an edge. He knew how to appeal to people, to get them to donate their money and their time. But without him, I don’t know if FLAG can make it.”  
  
“You’re not giving it much of a chance, are you.” Slowly, Bonnie looked over at her, eyes narrowed. “Devon’s grave hasn’t even been filled in yet, and you’re digging one for FLAG right beside him. But then.” The bitter laugh she’d stifled voiced itself. “You don’t know all that much about people in need. You’ve always lived off Daddy’s trust fund, and heard him called a dreamer and probably worse - learned to keep your eye on the profit margin after you found out just how much money he was throwing away to help people he didn’t even know. Thanks to your little stunt so long ago, two people I happen to care for more than you can even imagine almost died. Now you’re throwing away the work that the rest of us, the rest of us dreamers, us altruists - these people who have worked every day for the last fifteen years, putting our lives on the line, sticking our necks out for people we didn’t even know, even saving the country and maybe even the world a couple times… You’re throwing out all of the work we’ve done like so much garbage.”   
  
She took a breath, then another. Her face was red, she was sure, and she felt how her jaw was set. Her hand was even clenched around the pitiful excuse for a handbag she’d bothered herself to carry, just so she’d have a place to put a wet handkerchief instead of tucking it under her bra strap. For a moment, she was tempted to smack Jennifer across the face with it, but she knew she’d end up on the bad side of an aggravated assault case. “If,” she murmured. “ _If_ someone had thrown out all of Wilton Knight’s work when he died, just like you’re doing with Devon’s, you’d be living on pennies. But my two friends, whose lives you put in danger, would never have had to deal with you at all.”  
  
“One of those people,” Jennifer returned, “is a car.”  
  
“And that _car_ ,” she snapped, “has more heart than you ever will.”  
  
“I’ll write you a letter of recommendation.”  
  
Her lip curled in distaste. “Get out of my sight.”  
  
Bonnie’s gaze was fixed on the line between grass and earth once more as one set of footsteps walked away. One. That meant Charles was still there. Poor, sad-eyed Charles Graiman. She was almost expecting his hand when it came to her shoulder.  
  
“Bonnie,” he murmured. His voice was low, reassuring, sympathetic. Enough to make her eyes burn again. Stages of grief, she told herself. For Devon, and now for FLAG. Anger, bargaining, back to anger again, all the while crying her eyes out. “Bonnie, listen. There’s a place open for you in Knight Industries. I made sure of it. You’d be working with me in a new department, a new company, called Knight Research.”  
  
“Working on what,” she exhaled, not curious but knowing he expected the question.  
  
“There’s a governmental contract. They want to try something like the prosthetic limbs that have been developed for people who have lost their arms - transmitting movement through electrodes.”  
  
The thought brought a chill to her. Nothing good, she knew, could come of that. She had visions of metal arms being driven by the swing of a hand, cold steel striking flesh and leaving only blood and fire in its wake. For a moment, nausea gripped her stomach. “No,” Bonnie answered. “I don’t build machines for war. I worked on Kitt because he helps keep the peace. He’s never done harm, and he never will.”  
  
“This isn’t for war—”  
  
“That’s what they’ll use it for. Just like if they got hold of Kitt’s MBS. No, Charles. I’ll work at a garage first.”  
  
He sighed, and Bonnie felt like sighing with him. She reached up and rubbed her eyes instead. God, she was so sore, from feet to scalp. Maybe the knots across her shoulders could work as well as MBS, she joked to herself, even getting a faint smile. “You might’ve invented the car, but the AI is mine,” she said, voice quiet, resigned. “I know Jennifer will bring that up.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Charles told her.  
  
“Everybody’s got a different priority,” she exhaled. “Just… don’t lose sight of what’s important while you go off chasing profits for a while.”  
  
“I’ll remember,” he nodded.  
  
“Goodbye, Charles.”  
  
“Goodbye, Bonnie.”  
  
As she walked away, she could feel her heels just slightly sinking into the ground. These shoes weren’t meant for grass. The sun warmed her through the black dress as she headed toward the men in their black suits, standing near the black car. It even felt like the weather was mocking her. A day like today and it didn’t even have the decency to rain.  
  
“Everything all right, Bon?” Michael asked as she came near, reaching out to settle his hand on her arm.  
  
“No,” she answered, quiet and honest. “But we’ll live through it.”  
  
“What’s goin’ on?”  
  
Bonnie looked over at Reg, then down to Kitt who prodded, “Tell us?”  
  
“It’s just time to say goodbye to another old friend.”  
  
Ten minutes, perhaps fifteen, and the cemetary was silent again, except for the faint sounds of shovels and dirt. The headstone read Devon Miles, but with him, an ideal was put to rest.


End file.
